Big & beautiful: Ayla studio in San Francisco expands

1of 5The Ayla studio is a small but mighty destination for beauty and wellness. Having just added 1,600 feet next door for office space and fulfillment, every inch of the original 500 square-foot-space is now available to learn, play with products and get treatments. Founder Dara Kennedy perfects a shelf display.Photo: Ayla Beauty

2of 5Chloe Warner of Redmond Aldrich was the designer and architect for the space: “Think if your coolest friend has an apothecary and you are welcome to play any time — that’s what we wanted the space to emulate,” says founder Dara Kennedy.Photo: Ayla Beauty

4of 5Chloe Warner of Redmond Aldrich was the designer and architect for the space: “Think if your coolest friend has an apothecary and you are welcome to play any time — that’s what we wanted the space to emulate,” says founder Dara Kennedy.Photo: Ayla Beauty

5of 5Ayla Beauty founder Dara Kennedy at a makeup station in the studio.Photo: Ayla Beauty

Tucked behind the Healing Arts Building on Bush Street, the Ayla studio is a small but mighty destination for beauty and wellness. A recent expansion and renovation added 1,600 feet of office space next door, which means that every inch of the original 500-square-foot space is now devoted to products, workshops and treatments.

Ayla founder Dara Kennedy chose a customer — architect and designer Chloe Warner from Redmond Aldrich — to be both the designer and architect of the expanded space. “She got it immediately,” said Kennedy in her studio as she sipped her Ayla + MyHavtorn Happy Tea, pointing out touches such as the peaceful mural that Warner and her partner painted on the wall and the custom makeup station. “Think if your coolest friend has an apothecary and you are welcome to play any time — that’s what we wanted the space to emulate.”

Kennedy opened her brick-and-mortar in 2013 as more of a work space, but she soon found friends and customers strolling in to interact with her team and play with the products: “We are social creatures. All of the people that came in the early days I credit with making Ayla into a retail space.”

Although she sells marquee natural brands like Vintner’s Daughter and May Lindstrom, she prides herself on her discerning selection process and bringing in relatively unknown brands and those that have been previously unattainable in the U.S. One such example is French pharmacy favorite BioRecept, a line of hyaluronic skin care, previously only known in the U.S. by the magazine editors who would fill their suitcases with it before returning from Paris.

Kennedy has invited an impressive roster of beauty and wellness experts to conduct in-studio workshops, such as craniosacral therapy with celebrity aesthetician Julia March, and a posture workshop with Pilates guru Elizabeth Larkam. Kennedy also opened her new treatment room to specialty facial masseuse Julie Lynge to see clients twice a month.

Though Millennials will love the clean design and “come play with me” makeup stations, don’t expect the crowds at the workshops to skew in that direction. “It’s been wonderful to see the age span,” Kennedy said. “We literally have had women ranging in age from 20s to 80s attending our workshops.”

The workshops aren’t the main draw at the Ayla studio, which started in 2011 as an online shop for natural and nontoxic skin care. As a former beauty executive, Kennedy knew the value of industry knowledge, so she collected a who’s who of dermatologists, nutritionists and facialists to help dish out personalized advice to customers. Whether a customer fills out a detailed online questionnaire or comes to the studio for a one-on-one consultation, she should expect to receive informed recommendations. Not only is the Harvard-educated Kennedy a natural researcher — she keeps up on fun facts, such as that the allergen of the year in 2017 was glucoside — but she often taps her industry experts to chime in on customer advice.

“We really want our customers to believe in their beauty,” Kennedy said. “Whether a new skin care regimen or posture tutorial helps them get there, we want to help our customers find and love that beauty.”